“Not skinny-dipping, then?” I ask.
“Unfortunately for our classmates, no,” Ethan replies. The wind whips past us suddenly, rustling the hair curling onto his forehead.
I roll my eyes, loving the familiar feeling of the gesture. “Everyone looks really disappointed,” I say dryly.
He laughs lightly, imperceptibly enough I’m not sure I didn’t imagine it. “What about you?”
“I’m definitely not disappointed,” I say quickly. It’s ridiculous, the idea I would enjoy him skinny-dipping. Him removing his fleece, his polo and chinos, folding them neatly on the sand so they’re not wrinkled when he puts them on later. Him rushing into the waves. It’s nothing I enjoy imagining.
“I meant”—Ethan’s voice is heavy with derision—“why aren’t you skinny-dipping?”
I pause, not volleying back the way I usually would. “I don’t know,” I say honestly. “It’s just not interesting to me.”
Ethan doesn’t reply. We walk the next steps in silence. The sand slopes upward, narrowing into a path lined with rocks. On either side, wildflowers grow, the short-stemmed plants’ white and orange petals fluttering in the wind.
While we walk, I feel compelled to continue. “Do you think we’ll regret not doing it?”
“Not doing what?” Ethan’s question holds no skepticism or scorn.
I gesture in the direction of the water. “Skinny-dipping,” I say. “You know. The things they do while we’re studying. The romanticized high school experience everyone says we should have.”
Ethan thinks for a moment. I find myself feeling pleased he’s not rushing his response, not speeding to formulate some discussion-ending rebuttal the way he would if we were debating in English or student government. “I don’t know,” he finally replies. “I don’t regret it right now. Do you?”
“No,” I say, not hesitating. It’s surprising, the relief of hearing my own sentiments in Ethan’s voice.
“Then why do you wonder if you’ll regret it later?” he asks, and even though I’m not looking at him, I can feel his gaze on me.
I don’t know why we’re speaking so honestly, or why it feels like Ethan’s actually interested in my thoughts for once. I wonder if it’s the free feeling of the open night sky, far from the confining classrooms where we’re constantly in each other’s faces, or if he just missed me while I was playing hard-to-piss-off.
I think back on Williams’s warning, on Dylan theorizing high school was the only time you could have certain experiences. I hope I’m not the only person in the world who disagrees. “I guess I don’t,” I say. “In ten years, when I look back on high school I’ll be reliving long nights of studying, early mornings getting last-minute reviewing in, icing my hand from hours of note-taking.”
Ethan’s lips twitch. “I don’t see anything wrong with those memories.”
I feel piled-up thoughts tilt precariously, ready to tumble out. “I just wonder if I’m . . . overlooking something. I don’t understand why everyone thinks high school is special. Why is now the time to go skinny-dipping or we’ll regret it? We could go skinny-dipping next year or the year after or when we’re sixty. But it’s high school everyone holds up like it’s this epicenter of your life. This milestone we feel compelled to revisit every ten years for the rest of forever.”
Ethan remains quiet. When I’m done, he nods. We’ve reached the parking lot, and we stand under the amber ring of one of the lampposts. “I think it’s probably because high school is where you start to figure out who you really are,” he says, his voice taking on the quiet deliberateness it does when he’s delivering one of his more insightful comments in class. He looks past me, his eyes on the waves. “Sometimes, I guess you need skinny-dipping to find out.”
“Why aren’t you in the water, then?” I ask. “Do you know exactly who you are, no skinny-dipping required?” His comment catches on the questions I’ve had recently, the suspicion Ethan’s a shiny, smart package surrounding a center I can’t see into.
“No,” he says.
I note the non-elaboration of his reply. Like all his evasions, it does nothing to unwrap the riddle he is, the boundary between real and fun, and what’s beneath them both. The lingering unfinished feeling I’m left with raises more questions I’m sure he won’t answer.
I don’t know if I accept his explanation, either. High school isn’t the time everyone figures out who they are. People like me have known for years, and plenty of people won’t until years later. Jamie, for example.
Ethan interrupts my contemplations. “The reason I’m not skinny-dipping is because I have to Photoshop a few graphics tonight.” His posture has changed, his hands shoved cavalierly in his pockets, his shoulders shifting into their usual combative slant. His teeth flash. “Honestly, Sanger, you wouldn’t have a newspaper without me.”
The squeals and laughter of our classmates echo up from the water. I face Ethan squarely, putting the shore behind me. “You haven’t finished those yet?” I cross my arms. “Very unlike you, Ethan.” In tossing jabs back and forth, I realize they’re the first punches I’ve thrown in the past ten minutes. I still don’t know how to fill in the and I felt earlier, but those ten minutes haven’t been terrible.
While we’re watching each other, waiting for each other’s next move, my mom pulls into the parking lot, the gravel grinding under the wheels of her car. The cool white of her headlights sweeps over the pavement, blinding me and Ethan in the glare.
“See you on Monday,” I say, walking in the direction of the car.
“I’m dreading it already,” Ethan replies dryly, but in his eyes there’s the hint of a smile and a flicker of fire.
Twenty-Nine
HECTOR’S TALKED NONSTOP FOR the duration of my third and final driver’s ed lesson, telling me how he learned his friend AJ is coming into town. While Hector polished off his Cotton Candy Blizzard, I’ve heard for the past forty minutes every AJ anecdote I could ever want to hear. Their decision to found the Settlers of Catan Club, when Hector helped AJ mount a campaign for class president, how they fought over AJ changing the club meeting schedule so he could join the Young Entrepreneurs Club.
Eager to change the subject, I head off his next wistful recollection. “Hey, how’s Ethan’s driving? Do you think he’ll pass?” I check the crosswalk for pedestrians. Ethan’s finished his lessons, and with his birthday this week, I know his test must be soon. “Who’s better, him or me?”